Ruka Minazuki
Ruka Minazuki, also known by her former name as Ruka Yomotsuki, is the main character in Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. Perplexed by her memories of the past and worried by the death of her two friends, Marie and Tomoe, Ruka journeys to Rougetsu Island to try and find answers. She isn't alone in her curiosity, as two other friends, Misaki Asou and Madoka Tsukimori also seek the truth of their past life on the island. Ruka knows from her clouded memories that some tragedy occurred in their childhood, but she wasn't prepared to face the darkness lay that hidden within the island. Background Ruka was first introduced when she was 17 years old. She had entirely forgotten her past. All she remembered was a faint recollection of a melody, which she tried to reconstruct on the piano. She had no memory of her childhood, and had even forgotten her father's face. 2 of her childhood friends are dead in a terrifying manner. In search of answers, Misaki and Madoka depart for Rougetsu Island, and do not return. Ruka follows, searching for her lost memories. Past Ruka was born and raised on Rougetsu Island. Her childhood seems to have been a happy one, and she was close to both her parents. Her mother, Sayaka, was a Tsukimori Maiden, and although the tradition had died out, she began to teach Ruka to play the Tsukimori Song on the piano. However, Ruka's father Souya Yomotsuki, a mask-maker, became more and more obsessed with the craft of one of his ancestors, and started to neglect his family to work on masks. Souya and Sayaka began to argue a lot as she tried to convince him to stop what he was doing, and Ruka wrote in her diary that she was lonely and bored when he didn't hug her or stroke her head. One day she went looking for her father in his workshop, where he was hammering a mask. When he turned around, he was wearing a mask too, and Ruka was frightened when she didn't recognise his face. Souya forced Ruka to wear one of the new masks he had made, and as a result, Ruka developed Getsuyuu Syndrome. Sayaka found her in the garden one night, gazing at the moon, and took her to Rougetsu Hall for treatment. It was at here that she met Misaki Asou and Madoka Tsukimori, and became friends with them. One of the experimental treatments Ruka underwent was music therapy, and she reacted very strongly to it, saying it made her remember horrible things. She was eager to see her father again, unaware that Sayaka, convinced that Souya's work on the masks was endangering Ruka, had decided to keep her away from him at all costs. On the night of the lunar eclipse, all the patients at Haibara Hospital and Rougetsu Hall gathered in the Lunar Eclipse Hall to watch the traditional Rougetsu Kagura. During the performance, Ruka, along with her new friends Misaki and Madoka, was taken away by You Haibara and brought to a vast cavern underground. She was dressed in the ritual garb and mask of a Kanade and made to participate in the even older Kiraigou ritual, providing musical accompaniment for a dancer, the Utsuwa, who wore the Mask of the Lunar Eclipse that Souya had been working on so diligently. However, the ritual failed. The mask shattered and the Utsuwa, Sakuya Haibara, fell into a coma. Ruka and the other kidnapped girls collapsed too, and lost all their memories. For more than a week, they remained underground, in a special chamber in which the light of the moon filtered down through a well. It was thought that gazing at the moon would have a purifying effect. It was here that Choushiro Kirishima, investigating at Sayaka's request, discovered the girls. They were taken to Amakore Bay Police Station and then returned to their families. However, Sayaka and Ruka did not go back to the Yomotsuki House where Ruka had grown up; instead, they left the island completely, leaving Souya behind, and Sayaka refused to tell her daughter anything about her childhood, preferring to focus on building happy memories. To erase Ruka's connections to the events, Sayaka changed Ruka's family name into Minazuki. Sayaka had been worn down by the stress of the events of 1970, and fell ill, eventually dying, and the islanders were all wiped out in an unexplained event in 1972. Ruka's only connections to her past were now the other four girls who had been kidnapped, and a faint recollection of a melody, which she tried to reconstruct on the piano. She had no memory of her childhood, and had even forgotten her father's face. Fatal Frame IV Ten years after the incident at Rougetsu Island, two of the five girls, Marie and Tomoe, are dead. In search of answers, Misaki and Madoka depart for Rougetsu Island, and do not return. Despite always warned by her mother to not return to Rougetsu Island, Ruka follows Misaki and Madoka, searching for her lost memories. She arrives at the abandoned sanatorium, Rougetsu Hall, where the girls were photographed ten years earler. As she explores, she catches glimpses of Madoka disappearing out of sight. She finds an old camera on the floor in the Kunihiko Asou Museum, and discovers that this camera is able to capture strange images. Ruka learns the truth when she catches up with Madoka in the library: Madoka has died, and is a ghost. With a distorted face, Madoka attacks Ruka, begging for help. Ruka makes her way around the building, gathering fragments of a black mask. She later discovers her own room, and remembers a song that was played by a music box when she was a child. When she plays the song on the piano, she has a vision of a different place, which seems familiar, and has a memory of a man hammering masks. Later on, Ruka finds her way into the hospital and goes underground, finding the secret cave in which the ritual was performed. She also finds the house she used to live in while living on Rougetsu Island, the same one she remembered when she played the song from the music box. In the house, it is revealed that the man that she saw hammering the mask was her father. From books and diaries scattered around, Ruka learns more about the history of her family, both her mother's side and her father's side. Her father was descended from a long line of master craftsmen, dedicated to making special masks which can affect the wearer's very soul, and her mother was a Tsukimori Maiden, one of a group of shrine maidens who assisted with the Kiraigou in the past. Ruka's ancestor Souetsu Yomotsuki had attempted to create the true Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, but instead had brought about the Day Without Suffering, a disaster in which many islanders died. Her father, Souya, had attempted the same thing, and suffered the same fate, when the Utsuwa from the failed ritual woke up and began to wander the island, causing everyone there to Bloom. However, Ruka learns that the song played by the Tsukimori Maidens is reputed to calm the moon and end the Blooming. She discovers the passage that leads to the lighthouse, at the top of which is the Gesshou Shrine, a special shrine used by the Tsukimori Maidens. Ruka defeats Sakuya and plays the Tsukimori Song on the organ there. This calms Sakuya long enough for Choushiro to put the remade Mask of the Lunar Eclipse on her face, and the spirits are able to pass on to the Afterlife. After Sakuya crosses over, the mask falls onto the floor and Souya appears and takes it. He turns around, finally revealing his face to Ruka, before he too crosses over. After the game's credits, Ruka is seen playing the same piano that is shown before she returned to Rougetsu Island, although this time she is now playing the Tsukimori Song instead of the incomplete melody she played before. As she plays, she sees a vision of a quiet forest, with a pool reflecting the moon: her father's vision of the afterlife. Appearance Ruka dresses in a short yellow dress. She wears simple shoes with stockings. Ruka alsowears a n ecklace around her neck. She has a short brown hair with a left-to-right bang. When she was young, she wore a yellow dress. Which also match the image color of the game. Trivia *Ruka is a native of Rougetsu Island. *Ruka was taught piano by her mother when she was very young. *Ruka was the first of the five girls to be rescued. *Ruka finds the same Camera Obscura that Madoka left behind after she was spirited away. *Ruka's room is #308 - 観月 (Mizuki; "viewing moon") *Ruka's clothes, in both her older and younger forms, match the image color of the game, yellow. *Ruka's name means "Flow of the song" whereas her last name means "Six month of the lunar calendar (June)". *Ruka is one of the ghosts that appears in Ghost Camera Mode in the 3DS game Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir. Gallery Fatal Frame IV promotional image1.jpg FFIV promo wallpaper2.jpg FFIV promo wallpaper1.jpg Ruka piano1.jpg Ruka promo2.jpg Ruka promo.jpg Fatalframe4characters.jpg Fatal Frame editing.jpg Category:Characters Category:Fatal Frame IV characters Category:Playable characters Category:Female Characters